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LC 6301 
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CHAUTAUQUA: 

A POPULAfi UNIVEESITY. 



BY/ 

/ 

JOHN H. VINCENT. 






{Reprhitecl from the Contemporary Review, May 1887.] 



LEWIS MILLER, President. JOHN H. VINCENT, Chancellor. J. L HURLBUT. Principal, 



COUNSELORS OF TMB C. L. S. C. 

Lyman Abbott, D.D., Bishop H. W. "Waeren, D.D., 

J. M. Gibson, D.D., W. C. Wilkinson, D.D., 

Ebwakd Everett Hale, D.D., James H. Carlisle, LL.D. 
Miss K. F. Kimball, Office Secretary. A. M. Martin, General Secretary. 

Mrs. Mary H. Field, San Jose, Gal., Secretary for tke Pacific Coast. 

Rev. J. H. Warren-, Murfreesboro, Tenn., Secretary for the Southern States. 

Lewis G. Peake, Drawer 2559, Toronto, Can., Secretary for Canada. 

Kev. Donald Cook, Dundee, Scotland, Secretary for Great Britain. 

Mrs. a. M. Drennam, O.'^aka, Jai>a.n,Secretary for Japan. 

Miss M. E. Landfear, Wellington, Cape of Good Hope, Secretary for South Africa. 



THE EOUR YEARS' COURSE OE THE C. L. S. C. 



1887-88. 

History of United States- 
American Literature. 
Physiology and Hygiene. 
Philosophy of the Plan of 

Salvation. 
Readings from Washing- 
ton Irving. 
Classic German Course in 

English. 
History of the Mediaeval 
Church. 



1888-89. 

Greek History. 
Greek Literature. 
Greek Mythology. 
Ancient Greek Life. 
Circle of the Sciences. 
Zoology. 
Chemistry. 
Philanthropy. 
Religious Literature. 



1889-90. 

Roman History. 
Latin Literature. 
Human Nature. 
Political Economy. 
Art. 

Philosophy. 
Electricity. 
Physical Geography. 
Uses of Matliematics. 
Religious Literature. 



1890-91. 

English History. 

English Literature. 

English Composition. 

Astronomy. 

Geology. 

Pedag(igy. 

Readings from French 

Literature. 
Social Questions. 
Religious Literature. 



STUDIES EOR 1887=88. 



History of the United States. By Edward Everett Hale, D.D $1 00 

American Literature. By Professor H. A. Beers, A.M., of Yale University.. . 60 

Physiology and Hygiene. By Dr. M. P. Hatfield 100 

Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. By J. P. Walker, LL.D 60 

Readings from Washington Irving 40 

Classic German Course in English. By Dr. W. C. Wilkinson 1 00 

History of the Medieval Church. By J. F. Hurst, D.D., LL.D 40 

Readings in The Chautatjqtjan. A series of papers on the following subjects : 
1. American Industries: 3. Questions of Public Interest: Z. Current Literature; 4. Homes of 
American Authors ; 5. Botany ; 6. History and Literature of the Far East ; 7. Great Events of the Mid- 
dle Ages; 8. Life and Manners ; 9. Health Paper; 10. Out-of-Door Sports; 11. Sunday Readings. 



THE CHAUTAUQUA MOVEMENT. 



B.Y J. H. VIlSrCKTsTT, 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LEWIS MILLER, ESQ. 



A HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE " CHAUTAUQUA IDEA. 

Published by ihe CHAUTACQCA PRESS, . _ . . Price, ^1. 

j^^Send orders to the Office of the C L. S. C, Plainflekl, N. J. 



This book has been prepared entirely in the interest of Chautauqua work. Neither the author 
nor the publisher receives any pioflt whatever from its sales, the proceeds being devoted exclusively 
to the advancement of this great educational enterprise. 

From the Journal of 'Education. 

The Chautauqua Movement, by John H. Vincent, Published by the Chautauqua Press— the 

history of the grandest educational movement that ever developed in America, based on the highest 

plan of unsectariau religious liberty, as well as the most true and practical home education— is 

worthy of careful reading and study. The C. L. S. C. is a union that is a power among us. 



ABSTRACT OF ANNUAL REPORT OF THE C. L. S. C. 



By the Secretary, Miss K. F. Kimball. 



During the past year nearly fifty thousand 
active members of the Chautauqua Circle have 
been in communication with tlie central olllce. 

Of the earlier C. L. S. C. classes, from 188-^ to 
1885, about one dfth of the entire number en- 
rolled held steadily to their work throughout 
the four years; but with the class of 1880 this 
proportion was materially increased, for out of 
fourteen thousand readers more than four thou- 
sand finished the required four years' course and 
received their diplomas during the summer and 
fall of 1885, making the entire number of C. L. 
S. C. graduates more than nine thousand. Out 
of this reserve force of C. L. S. C. workers more 
than twelve hundred have been actively identi- 
fied with Chautauqua work during the past year. 
Many graduates have reviewed a part of the 
work of the past four years, others have taken 
up special courses of reading in history, litera- 
ture or science, while still others have been en- 
rolled as students of the Chautauqua College of 
Liberal Arts and are pursuing its courses of 
study by correspondence, under the personal di- 
rection of able and experienced teachers. 

Early in the fall of 1885 the visit of Chancellor 
Vincent to Great Britain was followed in that 
country by a marked and rapidly-increasing in- 
terest in the possible benefits of the Chautauqua 
Literary and Scientific Circle to English readers. 
Day alter day letters were received from En- 
gland, Scotland aud Ireland asking for further 
information concerning the society, and so cor- 
dially was the new scheme approved in that 
country that from October 8, when, as announced 
In a letter from Dr. Vincent, "the Scottish C. L. 
S. C. movement was inaugurated at one o'clock, 
just as the cannon from the old castle thundered 
the hour," the C. L. S. C. lias been quietly win- 
ning Its way into the homes of the English 
people with apparently much the same welcome 
as that which has been so gladly given It in our 
own land. 

Many graduates of the C. L. S. C. who are 
wandering or working In foreign lands still 
forward items of interest while on the wing or 
in their customary fields of labor, giving substan- 
tial proof of loyalty to their alma mater by their 
continued efforts to extend her work. 

A hard-working missionary in Bulgaria is 
scattering the good seed as he finds opportunity, 
and expresses the hope " that some day a similar 
work will be in train for Bulgaria; the present, 
however, is a dark time." 

A member of '85 In Adabazar, Turkey in Asia, 
tells of the pleasant Chautauqua &'abbath vesper 
services held with their Armenian pupils, and a 
lew months later one of the young native teachers 
in the same school writes of the enjoyment and 
profit which she has found in her C. L. S. C. 
studies. 

Still jiurneyin!? eastward, we meetatBareilly, 
India, 't'.e Oriental Circle, with twenty-eight 
students of the class of 1890. Their secretary, a 
lady physician, writes, " Our members are doing 
■bravely and we are soon to have a meeting— 
that is, the hHlf-yearly meeting in June or July. 
It will probably be held in the Himalaya Mount- 
pins, and one of the articles on the programme 
is the Geology of the Himalayas, by one of our 
members who made a geological and botanical 
study along the way to the everlasting snows.'' 

In Mhow, Central India, a small but active 
circle reports work. They have ordered from 
America a set of Rocky Mountain minerals for 
help in the si tidy of geology, and are vigorously 
pursuing their studies. 

In Southern India the work is represented by 
three young ladies connected with the Madura 
mission. 

At Petchaburee, Siam, out of a little band of 
nine missionaries four or five Chautauqua stu- 
dents and at Bangkok one other Chautauquan 
completes our claims upon Siamese territory. 

In Santingo. Chili, a half dozen students are 
at work. In Mexico and the West Indies a scat- 
tereil few uphold the Chautauquan standard, 
while in the Hawaiian Islands several energetic 



circles report a successful year's work and a 
well-sustained interest in all that pertains to 
Chautauqua. The remarkable geologic forma- 
tions to be loiind on these islands have afforded 
the circles unusual facilities for the study of 
geology, and the hearty co-operation of the pres- 
ident of Oahu College in the work oi the C. L. S. 
C. has made the study of the sciences especially 
enjoyable. Among our students on the broad 
Pacific we must not lorget that valiant band of 
three in Micronesia who receive their mail but 
once a year, and who report that their circle, 
which has continued three years, expects to 
graduate all its members. 

For two years the South African Branch of the 
C. L. S. C. has held an assembly during the mid- 
winter season of June and July in the Huguenot 
Seminary at Wellington, Cape Colony. C. L. S. 
C. Round Tables have been held, Sunday-school 
and secular normal methods discussed and lect- 
ures of a general character delivered lefore 
this interested and enthusiastic band of Chau- 
tauquans. 

Just as we are closing the work of the year 
'86-7 the last welcome news reaches us, dated 
"Osaka, Jaian, June S8, 1887: There are now 
over two thousand members and twenty-nine 
local circles at work. Eight hundred copies of 
the magazine (the Jafjmiem Chcnitauqvmi) are 
sold to the members every month. Many of 
these readers, because of their poverty, club 
together and take the paper. The prospects 
ot the society were r.ever better than now. 
Please accept words of hearty cheer Irom the 
J. L. S. C." 

During the summer of 1886 thirty assemblies 
held thefr sessions in all parts of the country ; on 
the Atlantic ccast, in the South, the Missisrsippi 
valley, the North-we,':t and on the slopes of the 
Pacific, and from these centers of influence 
thousands of earnest Chautauqua students car- 
ried back to their homes in every corner of the 
land new enthusiasm fur the work of the coming 
year. 

The territory occupied by the local circles of 
the C. L, S. C. embraces every State and Terri- 
tory of the United States, all parts of Canada, 
and many foreign countries. In our own land 
the New England and Middle States, with their 
dente population, show, of course the greatest 
jioportion of circles, but during the jear un- 
usually rapid growth has been made in two sec- 
tions of the country; in the North-west, includ- 
ing Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, 
and the States further west, where the number 
cf circles has increased more than one third, 
and in the States south of the Ohio River, where 
the growth has been even greater, the circles 
having almost doubled their number within the 
year. 

More than one thousand of the old circles 
which had been at work for one, two or more 
yeais reorganized for the season of 188C-7, 
while to these older organizations \\ ere added 
during the year an almost equal number of new 
circles, making the entire number recorded for 
the 5'ear nearly twenty-one hundred— an ncrease 
of more than two hundred over the number re- 
potted one year ago. Twenty-seven thousand 
members of the C. L. S. C. are re presented by 
these twenty-one hundred circles, while the 
permanent character of the work is indicated by 
the fact that the proportion of members in the 
old circles is, as a whole, greater than that in the 
new organizations. Connected with our more 
than two thousand recorded circles in 1886-7 
have been ten thousand local members, who, 
although not enrolled at the central office as 
regular students, do in many cases pursue the 
full course of reading for the year, and areoften 
active and valuable members of the local organ- 
iz.ations. 

In many of our large cities the local circle 
idea has been still further developed by the or- 
ganization of local unions, embracing all the 
circles In one city or in a certain locality. 



CHAUTAUQUA PERIODICALS. 



Volume VIII.J 



XLbc Cbautauquan. 



[Meadville, Pa., October, 1887. 



Ten Numbers in the Volume. 
Official Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. 

THE eighth volume of THE CHAUTAUQUAN will begin with October, 1887 (current volume ends 
with July, 1887). A Partial Announcement of our Contributors for 1887-88 includes the following 
eminent names : — 



Hon. T. B. Seed, of Maine. 

Thos. Wentwortli Higginson. 

Bishop J. F. Hurst, D.D., LL.D 

James Bay lis. 

Dr. J. M Buckley. 

Clarence Cook. 

■Wm. Cleaver "Wilkinson, D.D. 

Prof F. A. March. 

Prof. T. "Whiting Bancroft. 

John Burroughs. 

Mary Treat. 

Dr. Titus JUunson Coan. 

D. H. W^heeler, D.D., LL.D. 

S. U. Clark. 

Bishop H. "W. "Warren. 

Frances E. Willard. 

G. Brown Goode. 

Helen Campbell, 



Julia "Ward Howe. 
Bey. Dr. Geo. "W. Reed. 
Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, LL.D. 
Rev. S. G. Smith, Ph.D. 
Lewis Miller, Esq. 
Maurice Thompson. 
Prof. W. i: uccock, D.D. 
Mrs. General John A. Logan. 
George Alfred Townsend. 
Susan Hayes "Ward- 
Prof. Charles J. Little, Ph.D. 
Ben. Parley Poore. 
"W. T. Harris. 
George Parsons Lathrop. 
Frank Beard. 
Mrs. Emily J. Buabee. 
Edward Everett Hale. 
Mary Lowe Dickinson. 



D., P.R.C.S.E., F.H.S.E., of Glasgow, and many others. 



Prof. "W. G. Sumner. 

James Parton. 

George Parker Fisher. 

Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen. 

Prof. Hiram Corson. 

Prof. H. C. Adams. 

Albert Shaw. 

Prof. Richard T. Ely. 

Ed ward "Weston. 

Calvin Thomas. 

Charles Barnard. 

Mrs. Schuyler "V"an Rensselaer, 

Dr. Henry Calderwood. 

Edward Atkinson. 

MiS. Mary Livermore. 

Dr. Henry McCook. 

Prof. "W. G. "Williams D.D. 

Chancellor J. H. "Vincent. 

C. Fred. Pollock, M 

Volume XII.] [Meadville, Pa., August, 1837. 

Cbautauqua Hesembl^ Bail^ f3eralb* 

Nineteen Numbers to the Volume. 
Official Organ of the Chautauqua Assembly. 

THE ASSEMBLY HERALD is an 8-page, 48-colunin newspaper, prepared and published in the 
Grove at Cliautauqua. The matter f.>r its cola'nns is gathered on the Cliaulauqua Grounds. 
A large and well-arr.mged Printing Office, employing a large force of compositors and equipped 
with a steam-power printing press and all other machinery necessary for producing a first-class Daily 
Newspaper, has been esiablislied in the woods for producing the Assembly Hbiiiald. The nineteen 
numbers in the volume appear daily, Sundays excepted, during August. 

The Assembly Herald depicts the life of the famous Summer Resort, Cliautauqua, and publishes 
every day stenographic reports of lectures from the ablest speakers of America and England, delivered 
on the Chautauqua Platform, and full accounts of all the varied and interestin.^ departments of 
Chautauqua work. No three books of Lectures can be found in the country containing so large a 
number and great a variety of popular lectures as does a volume of the Assembly Herald. In no 
other form can so large a number of helpful methods tor teachers and students be iound. Everything 
published is the latest, freshest, and best of its kind. 

Subscription Price of the Chautauqua Periodicals. 

Combination Offer: 

Good till August 1, 1887, after that date it will be 
withdrawn ; 

CHAFTAUQUi ASSEMBLY HehALD, ) „ „ -., „, ,„ 

^ } OifB YKA.B 13.25 (93. 

The Chata-UQUan, ) 



Subscription Price: 

Thb Chatjtauquan $1.50 (6s.) 

In CiiUBS OP Five or More, to cite post- 
office ADDRBSS, each .... 1.35 
Our reader.1 willfi'' '■ if to their adoantage to 
examnte our Cj.nbination offer. 
Chatjtattqua Assembly Herald . . . $1.00 (4s.) 
Iif Clubs op Five, ob More, to onb post- 

OFPICH ADDRESS, EACH .... .90 



1^* Now is the time to send in your subscriptions. R3mittaaces should be made by post-office 
money order or draft on New York, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh, to avoid loss. 

Address— Dr. T. L. FLOOD, Editor and Proprietor, 
Meadville, Pa., U.S.A. 



During August, address Chautauqua, Chautauaua Co.. N'.Y ■. U.S.A. 



-A 



0/^ 



CHAUTAUQUA— A POPULAR UNIVERSITY. 



" 'I'^ITE Chautaiiqua Literary and Scieutific Circle " is an educa- 
-^ tioual organization effected in America about ten years ago. 
Its first decade has been crowned with a success which seems to 
justify the enthusiasm of its projectors and members, and which 
certainly commends its unique aims and methods to the critical 
examination of all who are interested in the cause of popular 
education. It enrols a membership of more than one hundred 
thousand persons, few of whom are under twenty-one years of age. 
They are to be found, not only in the United States and Canada, 
I'* 4 also in Great Britain, on the Continent of Europe, in India, 
Ciiina, South Africa, and the Isles of the Sea. There are 
circles of readers in the Sandwich Islands. More than nineteen 
hundred native members have been reported from Japan. The 
" Circle " has received the unqualified approval of eminent educa- 
torSj of statesmen, and of clergymen, who have taken time to 
examine its aims, organization, and plans of operation. 

It is the distinctive mission of the ''Chautauqua Literary and 
Scientific Circle " to direct the reading habits of that great majority 
in every community — the full-grown people who are no longer in 
the schools. It is an " after school " for those who have received 
the best that the educational institutions, at their best, can give; 
and for those also — and I might almost say, especially for those — who. 
from necessity, or from waywardness, abandoned all educational insti- 
tutions long before the best influence of these institutions was 
possible, and who now, awakened to a sense of loss and of imperative 
need, desire the assistance which once they could not appreciate 
and therefore deliberately rejected. There are many people of this class 
in every community. No educational provisions are made for them. 



4 THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 

For the infant, the kindergarten and primary school are ready. 
Graded schools serve him until the college approves and accepts 
him. Leaving the highest college class, he passes into the hands of 
spejial instructors in his chosen profession. From the beginning of 
his career he is cared for. Rooms, desks, books, tasks, hours are 
assigned. Teachers stand ready to answer his questions, or, in that 
wisest way of help, to ask other questions, which lead him to 
think his own way into knowledge and strength. Everything tends 
to make him a student — academic halls, scholarly associations, 
memorials that inspire by worthy examples of honourable success, 
and living teachers who, by power of personal influence, quicken him 
to desire and to resolve upon achievement. Uut these favoured 
classes, from the humble pupil on the lowest form of the primary 
school to the winner of prizes in the University, constitute but a 
small minority of the population. And, notwithstanding the advan- 
tages I have described, I am sorry to believe that a majority of this 
minority is made up of usually reluctant and apathetic students. 
They go to school because they must go. Recess, vacation, and final 
release from the bondage of lessons and pedagogue are hailed with 
delight. It is the majority that comes prematurely into this free- 
dom. Then follow a few years of indolence or of mere manual 
labour ; then regrets because of forfeited opportunity -, then long- 
ings after a culture once possible but now unattainable; then 
deliberate abandonment to mercenary or other unworthy aims in 
life ; no reading, or worse than none ; " no perspective, no ambi- 
tion ; " frivolity, self-gratification, deterioration, stupidity. The 
" better " society within reach is avoided because of its higher 
standard. Such souls marry their own kind. Children grow up 
without desire for education, or they soon find how little father 
and mother know about the school- world, and how little they care 
for the things which the best teachers commend and emphasize. All 
the tendencies of that household are in the wrong direction. Evil 
influences multiply. Wrong political opinions easily fiud place, and 
are strengthened by a sense of separation between themselves and 
the more self-respecting families of the community. Households 
that do not struggle upwards are, under any government and under 
any civilization, centres of corrupting influence, social, political, and 
religious. The nations need Homes with love and lofty ideals in 
them, with hope, and courage, and the ardent desire that beget 
united and continued effort. The political reformers who forget the 
" domestic power " must fail in their schemes for the " betterment " 
of the race. We talk much and sagely about "beginning with the 
children.'^ Wise social regenerators begin with the parents of the 
children. They turn their attention to the four walls of " the 
living room " — to its pictures, its books, its magazines, its decora- 



CHAUTAUQUA— A POPULAR UNIVERSITY. 5 

tions, its talk, and its atmosphere. If children are to spea^: the 
English language accurately, mother and father must be their 
teachers. If they are to receive correct ideas of truthfulness, justice, 
self-deuial, sympathy with the needy, fidelity to principle in busiuess, 
loyalty to the nation, love of learning, and reverence for religion, 
these ideas are to be given at home, by those who are with them 
earliest, with them longest, know them best, and wield the largest 
power over th:;m in the most susceptible years of life. We talk 
superficially about the power of early impressions, and give driblets 
of religious teaching in catechumen classes and Sunday-schools, for- 
getting that contiuuousness of influence is as much a factor in 
education as specific acts of teaching; that a day of ordinary life 
may easily neutralize a month of Sunday and Church instruction ; 
and that to produce early impressions that will endure we must 
control the parents who control the children three hundred and 
sixty-five days every year. 

When these people out of school — these grown-up men and 
women who are getting old, and who are in danger of losing hope, 
these parents and directors of home life — when they are once 
awakened to the possibilities that still await their acceptance in the 
realm of education, they do not find the assistance which comes so 
early and so abundantly to the juvenile members of their households. 
They find no direction, no books prescribed, no tasks, no hour«, no 
helps, no teachers. Are they not too old for these devices ? Are 
they children, that one must lead and feed them? It would be 
undignified for such as they to accept advice and to come under 
anything like resti'aint. They may read, to be sure. But they do 
not know what to read. The world is full of books, but who can 
feel sure that what he reads is the best, or that he is not wasting 
time in the reading? Nor do these people always know what they 
like; nor with any definiteness or certainty what they ought to 
like. They may have (everybody does have) some peculiar gift and 
adaptation, the discovery and development of which might be a re- 
modelling of their whole intellectual life. But how shall this work 
be begun? Who will make a voyage of discovery and find the San 
Salvador of their new life ? How much more they seem now to 
need a teacher than when they were children ! He was near them 
once. They did not appreciate him. Now, when they need him, he 
docs not put in an appearance, and they are ashamed to ask for him. 

And be it remembered that these adults are, intellectually, at their 
best. This is not the common idea. Childhood is the time for 
study, age for service. Seneca says : " It is an absurd and base 
thing to see an old man at his ABC {eltmentarius senex). We 
should lay up in our youth what we are to make use of in our old 
age." Seneca is only in part right. Educational opportunities lost 



6 THE COJSTEMPORARY RE VIE if. 

in youth are not for ever lost. Failure up to twenty-one is not 
necessarily final failure. A man of forty-five may be worth more, is 
probably worth more, for intellectual work, than a boy of fourteen. 
He has a less ready and retentive memory, but more power of 
application; less desire , to win prizes in competitive exanjiuatious, 
more desire to get useful knowledge for its own sake ; less mental 
vei-sahlity and vivacity, more practical acquaintance with nature and 
human nature. He can think more steadily without exhaustion. 
Knowledge from books seems more real to him because of the know- 
ledge he has won from life. He has more stability than the boy, 
more strength, more judgment. He knows what knowledge is most 
worth. But with the capacity and power which experience in this 
busy work-a-day world has given him, he lacks direction. Oh, if 
only the scholars and the sages would take his hand and tell him a 
secret or two — where and how to begin, what path to take, and how 
to know the true gold when he sees a glitter among the sands and 
the rocks ! 

It is to people of this class that the " Chautauqua Literary and 
Scientific Circle " opens, with its short and comprehensive courses of 
reading, its bonds of fraternity, its ideal associations, and its plans 
for leading those who join it to self-discovery as to their hitherto un- 
recognized aptitudes and lines of power. Nor to these alone, for it 
touches at the college portal to admit those whose formal education 
has been " completed." It supplies to non-professional collegians 
incentives to continued study. And this for their own good. If 
mental activity and application be suspended, power gained will soon 
be lost. There is an ecclesiastical doctrine: "Once a Bishop always 
a Bishop.'* But if is not " Once a scholar always a scholar." Mind 
that is not developing is deteriorating. One may forget what he 
once knew. Intellectual grip may b3 lost. Therefore college 
graduates who do not enter professional life are as much in need of 
assistance, incentive, and inspiration, as before they left the schools. 
Even those who enter the so-called learned professions are in danger 
of such devotion to particular lines of thought as to lose all that was 
most liberalizing and refining in the culture they have attained. 
They too need something to keep alive their interest in general 
literature, in the latest results of criticism and research, that, being 
specialists, they may still be men, and men in lively sympathy with all 
that is freshest and most important in the progress of humanity. 

The "Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle" makes a 
provision in a two-fold way for all scholars, professional and non- 
professional. It sets them at the review of the subjects embraced in 
the college curriculum. And, still better, it puts them into close 
and kindly fellowship with adults eager to be educated, and it 
encourages them to use the knowledge and pov^er already gained fur 



CHAUTAUQUA-— A POPULAR UNIVERSITY. 7 

the helping of others. It makes them teachers, so that they may 
slug; with Robert Browning — - 

** The office of ourselves .... has been, 
Fur the worst of us to ?ay, they so have seen, 
For tlie better — ^yhat it was they saw ; the best 
Impart the gift of seeing to the rest." 

Thus those who have, and those who need, are brought into com- 
panionship — adult "scholar^' and adult " student ^^— both out of 
scliool. They have a community of interest. They are equals and 
fellow students ; and the scholar accustomed to the atmosphere and 
associations of the college hall may receive corroborations, illustra- 
lions, new applications of his knowledge, and many useful hints from 
the every-day out-of-door life and experience of the man, who, 
knowing less of books, is acquainted with men, and who, although he 
has never studied geological or biological specimens — mounted, 
shelved, and classified — has kept open eyes, all his life long, among 
birds and flowers, rocks and reptiles. This, at least, I know, that 
in the early stages of this new association each will find in his own 
soul a larger respect for the other, and for the class he represents, 
and in this blessed brotherhood of Science, Literature, and Art they 
will mutually agree that man's real worth lies, not so much in ante- 
cedents, titles, or estates, as in dominant tastes, purposes, and other 
qualities of personal character. 

'\he first or general course of reading of the '' Chautauqua Literary 
and Scientific Circle " is limited by a single thought, which adapts 
the scheme to all classes of people. There are forty or more special 
or additional courses, to be pursued at the option of the reader. He 
may take two or more of these simultaneously with the first or 
general course. Or he may pursue them after its completion. His 
work in the "Circle^' may thus be superficial or thorough, an 
avocation or a vocation, employing forty minutes or four hours a day. 
The first course, already referred to as limited by a single thought, 
covers what I have called " the College Outlook." It aims to give 
a general survey of the world of literature in science, history, art, and 
belles-lettres ; the world which comes within the purview of the 
student Avho prepares for and pursues the ordinary college curriculum. 
The member of the ''Circle'' takes up the outlines of history — 
ancient, mediaeval, and modern; in a general and meagre way he 
studies the scope and spirit of the ancient and modern literature, and 
glances at the realms of physical, mental, and moral science. As 
when, visiting Loudon for the first time, he climbs to the dome of St. 
Paul's to get a general view of the city, its various parts, their 
relation to each other, the principal places of interest — and all this 
in anticipation of and preparatory to a more detailed and thorough 



8 THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 

exploratioD — so by this outlook on the broad world of knowledge he 
is prepared for wise selection and careful investigation. 

The college student who enjoys the same outlook during the years 
of his undergraduate course receives immeasurably more. He sees 
broadly, but he studies critically. The wide survey is incidental. 
He seeks mainly mental discipline and development by linguistic and 
mathematical drill. He trains himself to habits of attention, concen- 
tration, and discrimination. He is not in quest of facts, but of force. 
In college he works that he may be able to know. Afterwards he 
works in order to know. And he is glad to review this large world 
in which he wrought so diligently. It is a pleasure to him to stand 
on the dome of St. Paul's with the new-comer, and to see again in 
the general way what he has so long been familiar with in its details. 
And it is a good thing for the novice that the senior is there. 

It is this horizon of facts and principles, as far as they can be 
made available as subject-matter of knowledge, that the " Chau- 
tauqua Literary and Scientific Circle" transfers to a series of read- 
able books, which it places in the hands of the scholar, that he may 
review the world through which he has just passed ; in the hands of 
busy, out-of- school, society people, that they may know what the 
college world is ; and in the hands of parents, that they may form a 
just estimate of the school world, keep their children as long a time 
as possible in it, be able to keep company with their children after 
they do enter it, and render them help by all home ministries of 
persuasion and incentive, by ample provision of periodicals, books, 
pictures, apparatus, society, conversation, example, and inspiration. 

The wide adoption of this scheme among the adult population 
must yield blessed results. Parents will look upon education and 
the schoolmaster with greater respect. More students will enter the 
advanced schools. In its small, voluntary, local n)eetings, the 
*' Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle '' will increase an 
interest in substantial reading and in rational conversation. It will 
save busy people from the petrifying influence of mercenary life. It 
will crowd out weak and dissipating literature. It will relieve the 
dreary monotony of routine lives; mitigate the sorrows of the 
smitten and bereaved ; give to lowly and narrow homes hope, 
courage, and perspective; and put weight and worth into the houses 
of people, rich and poor, who are living in an aimless, self-indulgent, 
and useless way. It will find in lowly spheres heroes who never 
entered the army, poets who never framed a couplet, artiists who 
never touched chisel or canvas, and saints who never stood with 
folded hands before the eyes of men, but who have served their lives 
long in shops or kitchens. It will find a hard-working mechanic, 
who is a born reasoner, and encourage him to use his spare minutes, 
under wise direction, in the study of logic, mathematics, and 



CHAUTAUQUA— A POPULAR UNIVELiSlTY. 

philosophy. If a working-man has a taste for science^ it urges 
and assists him to observe facts, collect and classify data, and 
make and test generalizations. It will show how much may be 
made of the spare minutes of a busy life. One hour of close and 
systematic study a day means sixty school days a year. And if that 
be kept up from the time a man is twenty until he is forty, he will 
have eujoyed four years of the most beneficial education. An 
American, who is now a high authority in Sanscrit and Zend, without 
early educational advantages, began the study of these languages at 
a time when he was employed for over seventeen hours a day 
collecting fnres on a tram-car. Thus will the " Chautauqua Literary 
and Scientific Circle " trans-figure and ennoble common life, and 
illustrate the wise words of Epictetus : " You Athenians will confer 
the greatest benefit on your city, not by raising the roofs of your 
dwellings, but by exalting the souls of your fellow-citizens ; for it is 
better that great souls should live in small habitations than that 
abject slaves should burrow in great houses. ^^ 

The first general course of reading of the " Chautauqua 
Literary and Scientific Circle'^ is accompanied by memoranda, 
which are to be filled out by the student. They serve as 
examination papers for those who wish to test the work they 
have done. They are sheets of record and report for those 
who simply read. Beyond the "Circle^' are classes for work 
bv " correspondence,^^ with provision for the most rigid written 
examinations. Into these come readers who wish to be enrolled 
as students. College classes are organized, local studies, lectures, 
and examinations provided, and all thorough work is rewarded by 
promotion. Under a charter granted by the Legislature of the 
State of New York, the " Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts " 
and the " Chautauqua School of Theology " have been organized, 
to make possible and to encourage the most thorough work by 
those who have the ambition and the will to " M-rest success from 
adverse circumstance.^^ They provide for the student at home the 
benefits of professional direction. Although the advantage of per- 
sonal presence is not enjoyed, yet by written questions, answers, 
outlines, theses, and criticisms, the teacher is, by a mystic law of i he 
soul-life, present with his pupils, following, quickening, and inspiring 
them. Then in every neighbourhood, are college graduates who 
constitute an unorganized brotherhood gla^ to give help to those 
who, having been less favoured, seek counsel in their search for 
culture. By conversations, criticisms, and direct assistance they 
put into the isolated student's life some of the advantages of the 
living teacher's voice and magnetic power. " University classes '* 
are organized by students residing in the same neighbourhood, and 
special teachers are employed. All members of this widely scat- 



10 THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, 

tered fraternity may thus have their " college council/' and many 
of them the " college class." 

Provisions are also made for all classes of out-of-school readers 
and students who need guidance. There are a " Society of Fine 
Arts," a " Town and Country Club" (designed to train young 
people in observing the phenomena of Nature, and in doit)g some- 
thing in the line of raising plants and fruits), a " Teachers' Heading 
Union," for the benefit of teachers in the secular schools ; a " Young 
Eolks' E/cading Union," for the encouragement of good reading 
among the young people who are in school, or who have left it. 
Sunday-school Normal Work is also done through the " Chau- 
tauqua Assembly Normal Union," which has been in operation for 
fourteen years. Here, too, are the " Jiook-a-Month E-earling 
Circle," the " Society of Christian Ethics," the '' Ijook-up Legion," 
the "Children's Class/' the "Musical Reading Union" — ail with 
the term " Chautauqua" as a common prefix. 

The word " Chautauqua/' which 1 have used so frequently, and 
which is to my readers as meaningless as it is unpronounceable,* is the 
Indian name of one of the most lovely of the smaller American lakes in 
the State of Ncm' York, five hundred miles west of New York City, seven 
miles south of and seven hundred feet above Lake Erie, among the hills 
which form the watershed of the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence. 
It is on the borders of this lake that the " Chautauqua Literary and 
Scientific Circle " finds its "local habitation and a name/' The 
lake is about twenty miles long, and from one to three miles in 
"width. It is fourteen hundred feet above the Atlantic. Here, in 
a great grove of maple, beech, oak, mountain-ash, and other native 
trees, are five or six hundred cottages, a large summer hotel, and, 
during the " season " of from six to eight weeks, about three hun- 
dred tents. Here the people gather — probably seventy-five thousand 
difterent persons during the summer, some for one day, some for a 
week, several thousands of them for from four to eight weeks. 
They come to hear courses of lectures on science, on history, on 
philosophy ; to witness experiments in chemistry ; to study the stars 
through telescopes ; to take, if they so desire,- courses of lessons for 
six weeks in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, the modern languages, physical 
science, chemistry, political economy, and all branches relating to 
the department of pedagogy. Instrumental and vocal concerts, 
together with all possible legitimate recreations, are provided to 
lighten the days of study and make Chautauqua a paradise for chil- 
dren, a place where parents will feel it safe to settle down for the 
summer without exposure to the dissipation of the usual " resorts." 
Here are boating, fishing, athletic games, archery, croquet, lawn- 

* The word " Cliaii-tauq-ua " is pronouuced " Shaw-tawk'-wah." 



CHAUTAUQUA— A POPULAR UNIVERSITY. 11 

tennis, roller-coasting, military oadet drill for boys ; classes for chil- 
dren in music, calisthenics, clay-modelling, and Bible study. A 
museum has been provided, with valuable treasures in casts, photo- 
graphs, engravings, Oriental costumes, Syrian and Egyptian " finds,'' 
and facsimiles of many celebrated manuscripts. There is a beauti- 
ful model of the city of Jerusalem (in plaster of Paris), thirty feet 
iu diameter. And by the shore of the lake, which is used to 
represent the Mediterranean Sea, is a model of Palestine, three 
hundred feet long, where one may visit the Lake of Galilee, the 
flowing Jordan, and the Dead Sea. Here, on the hills and in the 
valleys, are the cities of the land, well wrought iu plaster or wood, 
and one may walk from Dan to Beersheba, Bible in hand, and be 
the better able to interpret that best guide-book of Palestine — the 
Word of God. 

To Chautauqua come the best lecturers and the best teachers — 
clergymen of renown, statesmen, orators, college presidents and 
professors. The summer schools are taught by professors from 
Yale, Harvard, Middletown, Johns Hopkins, and other Universities, 
who spend six weeks Avith classes made up of teachers and students 
from all parts of the United States and Canada. Many a man, 
reviewing his summer life in the Chautauqua grove, may say, as 
Horace did of Athens : " Indulgent Athens taught me some of the 
higher arts, putting me in the way to distinguish a straight line 
from a curve, and to search after wisdom amidst the groves of 
Academe. '^ 

The Chautauqua meeting began in 1874. It opened as a 
summer school, devoted especially to the training of Bible teachers, 
emphasizing the "week-day forces'' in religious culture. This 
movement, known as " The Assembly," was the suggestion and joint 
product of Mr. Lewis Miller, of Ohio, and the writer of this 
article. Mr. Miller is a business man of wealth and enterprise, an 
extensive manufacturer, for many years interested in popular educa- 
tion, the father-in-law of the distinguished electrician Mr. T. A. 
Edison, and himself an ingenious inventor. 

The " Assembly " gave a splendid opportunity for the development 
of the scheme of popular education already described. It was duly 
organized in 1878, and made Chautauqua its summer head -quarters. 
The " Circle " has contributed to the permanency and power of the 
Assembly, in the midst of which it began and with which it soon 
became organically connected. The Bible is the basis of the 
" Literary and Scientific Circle," the tirst motto of which is, " We 
Study the Word and the Works of God." The leaders of this 
educational movement are believers in Revelation and lovers of 
" wh?itsoever things are true " in art, in literature, and in science. 
Their iaith is so firm that they are confident of perfect Laraiuny 



12 THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 

between the ''Word'* and the "Works" when both are rightly 
interpreted. 

Every year a day of " Recognition " is observed, when those who 
have completed the four years' course of general reading receive 
certificates testifying that fact. Of all the Chautauqua days this is 
the brightest and best. In " St. Paul's Grove," among the green 
and ancient trees, stands the white-columned " Hall of Philosophy," 
an imitation in wood of the Parthenon at Athens. Here the 
ceremony of " recognition " takes place. A procession of old and 
young, of people representing all professions and all social classes, 
moves, with music, banners, and budges, to the great amphitheatre. 
Here an audience of six thousand people joins in song, led by the 
great pipe organ and the " chorus," and listens to the " Recog- 
nition Address" by some distinguished speaker. Then the diplomas 
are distributed, some of them containing four or five or more seals, 
testifying to so much more than the " required " reading, and all of 
them giving incentive to those who have begun to continue until 
the diploma shall be filled with seals. There is a touch of pathos in 
that part of the Chautauqua " Recognition" programme when three 
score or more little girls in white, standing before the " Hall of 
Philosophy," fling flowers in the pathway of the thousand or more 
men and women Avho have, in middle or later life, attempted and 
completed a course of reading — a work begun for the sake of their 
children and for the brightening of their own lives. Atid one can 
hear the oldest of them say, with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes : — 

" What does Time leave, when life is well-nigh spent. 
To lap its evenings in a calm content ? 
Art, Letters, Science, these at least befriend 
Our day's brief remnant to its i^eaceful eud — • 
Peaceful for him who shows the setting sun 
A record worthy of his Lord's ' Well done !' " 

Whether or not a similar movement may be begun in England I 
do not know. All that is best in its educational features is alieady 
carried on under the " University Extension Movement " and other 
noble enterprises of this great English people. The summer gather- 
ing like that at Chautauqua may be impracticable in the moist and 
uncertain climate of the British Isles ; but in imagination I have 
already seen old Haddon Hall aglow with torches and hearth fires, 
its empty chambers for a time again occupied, its great dining-hall 
echoing with song and speech and prayer, its green lawns filled with 
people who have come from the busy scenes to rest and recreate, and 
the meanwhile to enjoy instruction and to receive inspiration from 
those who are able to give it, and whom but for some such unique and 
special occasion they might never have seen. In ray dreams I have 
seen what good work for the homes and the schools and the homeless 
and the out-of-school multitudes of England might be accomplished 



CHAUTAUQUA— A POPULAR UNIVERSITY. 13 

by noble lords and men of princely fortune, wbose ample palaces and 
gardens seem to have been waiting these many years for a use and 
service which would make them still more pleasant and goodly 
places in the eyes of the Lord who loveth the children of men, and 
who loveth them also and especially who love and help their kind. 



-0-^-0- 



AN APJPKAL. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 917 180 2 



There are many persons wbo, favored by a kind Provi- 
dence with good fortune, are looking around for oppoi-tnni- 
ties to bestow a portion of their means. They endow chairs 
in colleges and universities. They contribute to the erec- 
tion of buildings. They found libraries. 

To persons such as these we make earnest apj^eal in 
behalf of the Chautauqua work. 

We need an endowment to aid in the establishment of a 
"Eesident Faculty for Non-Eesident Students." We hope 
to enroll thousands of j)ersons beyond college age, and 
unable to pursue a resident course, in this, our non-resident 
school. Who will contribute to this splendid scheme ? 

In behalf of thousands who covet educational oppor- 
tunity, and to whom access to existing institutions is impos- 
sible, we make this appeal for legacies and immediate con- 
tributions to the Chautauqua University. 

For further information address 

Dr. JOHN H. VINCENT, 

CHAUTAUQUA OFFICE, 



^HE j^HAUTAUQUA ^V^^EMBLY. 



The Chatjtauqua Assembly, whicli held its twelfth annual 
series of meetings at Chautauqua, N. Y., in Julj and August, 1885, 
is the title of the legal corporation under which, in connection with 
the " Chautauqua School of Theology " and the " Chautauqua Uni- 
versity" (both chartered institutions), all the work of the Chautau- 
qua system is performed. 

To unify the various departments of this work, the Board, at its 
annual session in January, 1885, resolved to prepare a plan under 
the general title of The Chautauqua Univeksitt, as follows : 

I. The Chautauqua Summer Meeting. 

II. The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. 
III. The Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts. 
TV. The Chautauqua School of Theology. 

Y. The Chautauqua Press. 

These departments are thus subdivided : 



L The Chautauqua Scmmee Meetings. — (C. S. M.) 

1. Tlie C. T. E. (Chautauqua Teachers' Ke- 

treat. ) 

2. The C. S. L. (Chautauqua Schools of Lan- 

guage.) 

3. The C. A. (Chautauqua Assembly.) 

4. The C. M. 1. (Chautauqua Missionary 

Institute.) 

5. The C. C. C. (Chautauqua Children's 

Class.) 

6. The C. I. C. (Chautauqua Intermediate 

Class.) 

7. The C. A. N. U. (Chautauqua Assembly 

Normal Union.) 



8. The C. S. C. E. (Chautauqua Society of 
Christian Ethics.) 

9. The C. S. F. A. (Chautauqua Society of 
Fine Arts.) See No. 3, below. 

10. The C. Y. L. (Chautauqua Youth's 
liCague ) Embracins the C. C. C. (see 
No. 5 above), the C. Y. E. E. U. (Chau- 
tauqua Yong Eolk-i' Eeading Union), 
the C. T. C. "C. (Chautauqua Town and 
Country Club), and theC.L. L. (Cliau- 
tauqua Look-up Legion). The " Chau- 
tauquaCadets" for boys, and the "Calis- 
thenioCorps" for girls, will be organized 
and drilled at Chautauqua next year. 



II The Chautauqua Literaky and Scientific Circle. — (C. L. S. C.) 



1. The regular Four Years' cour-e of Eead- 

ing. 

2. The After Courses for graduates. (See 

Hand-book, No. 2.) 

3. The C. S. F. A., for the study of art at 

home by correspondence. 



4. The C. T. C. C. Observations of natural 

law reported by correspondence. 

5. The C. M. E. C. (Chautauqua Musical 

Eeading Circle.) 

6. The B. M.^E. C. (Book-a- Month Eeading 

Circle.) 



III. The Chautauqua College of Liberal Arts— (C. C. L. A.) 
Provides thorough college courses for non-resident students, with rigid exnmination in 
Mental and Moral Science, Political Science, Latin, Greek, Mathematics, English, French, 
German, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Geognosy, Biology, History, Microscopy, 
Pedagogy, Journalism, History and Literature of Art, Elocutinn, Business and Practical 
Aff.ilrs, Phononfraphy, Agriculture. For information in regard to this department address 
t e Eegistrar Chautauqua, Plainfield, N. J. 

IV. The Chautauqua School of Theology. — (C. S. T.) 
For ministerial education — embracing the departments of Historical, Practical, and Doc- 
tinal Theology, the Jerusalem Chamber, School of New Testament Greek, School of Hebrew, 
etc. For information address Eegistrar Chautauqua, Plainfield, N. J. 

V. The Chautauqua Press. 
The publishing department of Chautauqua work, under the auspices of which the required 
ani special seal books are published or supplied, and various "requisites" furnished. 



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029 917 180 2 



Hollinger Corp. 



